Scale

Hagia Sofia, Istanbul, Turkey.
At first glance you might miss the girl taking a "selfie" in the arch. I also found the contrast between her human scale and the gigantic calligraphic panel quite striking.

Frankfurt Airport, Germany.

I had just got off a long flight from New York and had a longer flight to New Delhi to look forward to so I was eager to stretch my legs and check out my new camera so I started photographing strangers who were surprisingly obliging and unsuspecting. I had a great time and was lucky to get this portrait.

 

Puerto Rico, USA.

That's my dad inspecting the bottle of beer I had ordered with our meal. I think he was trying to figure out if real Trappist monks brewed the beer or not. Turns out it is. In case you are a beer aficionado - Rochefort Brewery.

6th Av. New York City.

This is the giant Robert Indiana Love sculpture on 6th Av. There's a constant line of tourists waiting to be clicked in front of it. If I had the patients, I would stand there for hours taking pictures of tourists as they carefully arranged themselves in from of the piece, each person changing the meaning and context of the four letter word.

From the Sacred to the Profane

I figure I should strike while the iron is hot! Here's one I took on my trip to NYC last December and forgot to post here...

Emerging from the quiet of St. Patrick’s Cathedral around sunset, I was greeted by this pre-Christmas rush as I looked across Fifth Avenue.

Vaux's Folly

No, I’m not trying to say that Calvert Vaux, the co-designer of Central Park, was foolish; perish the thought!

In architecture, a folly is a building designed and constructed purely for the delight of those who behold it. Belvedere Castle is exactly that, and has delighted visitors to the Park since 1869.

Strictly speaking, an architectural folly is built for no practical purpose, but since 1919, the National Weather Service has operated a weather station at Belvedere Castle. You can just about make out some of the instruments, above the peak of the main turret, in this photo. So next time you’re in New York City and here a radio weatherperson says, “… and the temperature in Central Park is…”, you’ll know where it comes from.

Belvedere Castle is a major stop on my Central Park photo safaris, as the view from its ramparts is stunning. Also, the Castle itself, perched high on Vista Rock, is photo-worthy both from below and close-up.

This post is in honor of our friend and blog founder Warren, whose "everyone check in" email reminded me I haven't posted here for a while. Thanks, Warren!

NYC Artist Makes It Big

Talk about making it big!

I was walking to the Lexington Avenue subway station on E. 23rd Street when I looked up and saw this giant work-in-progress. There were actually four men working on this - two each on two platforms.

I had my Tamron "super-zoom" 18-270mm lens on my camera. I racked it to full-out telephoto and started to watch the painters. The 270mm position was just enough to show a small but detailed figure against a large section of the painting.

From a superb workshop I took with Karen Schulman, I knew that in an image like this, gesture is important to keep the photo from looking too static. "Gesture," in that context, could mean a lean of the body, an arm or leg extended, in other words, just about anything that departs from "just standing there."

For this situation, I figured that "gesture" would be in the form of reaching out with the paintbrush. It took about 20 minutes, but sure enough, I got a few shots of two of the guys in a good lean-and-stretch. This one is the one I liked best, as he's putting his whole body into it.

In case you're curious, the... er... I don't know what to call the painting-on-the-side-of-a-building... is for a remake of the 1981 film, Arthur.

Art Deco Heaven

In the foreground is the 1936 statue of Atlas by Lee Lawrie and Rene Chambellan. The Art Deco statue greets visitors to 630 Rockefeller Center (the International Building) as well as passers-by. Through the spherical astrolabe on Atlas' shoulders, you can see 30 Rockefeller Center.

"30 Rock", since 1988, is called the GE Building. Before that, it was the RCA Building. The renaming took place after GE bought RCA (and thus, NBC) 27 years ago.

Prior to 1988, "the GE Building" was the beautiful 1931 Art Deco skyscraper at 570 Lexington Avenue. Oddly enough, the building was designed for RCA, and the original plans refer to it as "RCA Building." As it was being finished, GE and RCA were involved in some anti-trust actions, and in the settlement, GE got the building.

I was privileged to work in the "old" GE Building at 570 Lexington for 8 years. There was a company dining room on the 50th floor where anyone, from Jack Welch to the newest mail boy, could eat for a few bucks. The view to the West from the mens' room on the 50th was spectacular, until the Leona "Queen of Mean" Helmsley built her execrable Helmsley Palace Hotel.

Liberty For Sale

In most ways, it's a typical Times-Square area New York gift shop, full of I Love NYC ball caps, eight sizes of Empire State Building souvenir ornaments, and racks of Obama-Yes We Can! t-shirts.

But what distinguished this little shop was the just-about-person-sized replica of the Statue of Liberty, made from oak with a realistic copper patina and gold-leaf torch flame.

For sale!

At an appropriately recession-worthy price, too - I mean, wouldn't you like to have a Statue of Liberty in your home for only $1500?

By way of explanation, I took this photo yesterday on 8th Avenue near 45th Street waiting for our son Ben to join us for lunch. We were all going to see the matineé of the musical Avenue Q.

Camera-wise, I used a disappear-in-your-pocket Canon SD400 that I inherited from daughter Leah - she just replaced it with a spiffy Canon SD880IS.

Governors Island

Sandy and I spent a great two days in New York City this weekend, seeing Mama Mia! on Broadway and doing some sightseeing.

I'll have many more photos and, of course, lots to gab about, when I have some more time later this week.

But meanwhile, if you're visiting New York on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday between now and October 12th, be sure to consider a trip to Governors Island, a former military reservation just off the tip of lower Manhattan that's now a great venue for picknicking and sightseeing.